This page provides news on GEAG's position on a range of specific village issues. It will be updated as events unfold.

Neighbourhood Plan

The Parish Council and village volunteers will prepare a Neighbourhood Plan for Gamlingay Parish. A Neighbourhood Plan is a new way for local people to influence the planning and development of the area in which they live and work. There is a new website covering the foundations and the progress of the Neighbourhood Plan; have a look at that and see if you can help with the process.

Proposal to build houses between Mill Street and West Road

A development company, Endurance Estates, acting as agents for the landowner Trinity College, University of Cambridge, has submitted a planning application to build 29 houses on land between Mill Street and West Road. This is

The application was refused on 13 November 2015. Since then Endurance Estates has amended the plan, to reduce the vertical height of the houses on Mill Street, to set them back from the street and to preserve the hedge on Mill Street. GEAG continues to object to the application and has submitted a letter to that effect.GEAG members might feel the same about the application and might consider submitting their own letters of objection.

Draft Local Plan

In common with all local authorities, South Cambridgeshire District Council is currently preparing a 'Local Plan' that will guide the way that future development takes place over the next 20 years. The plan is a long and complex document which looks at many features of local life including housing, transport and the local economy. South Cambridgeshire consulted the public over the Plan in summer 2012. As part of that consultation, GEAG posted comments in response to more than fifty of the questions that were asked. You can read the plan and the comments here.
The draft plan was all but completed and was simply awaiting final authorisation and adoption, but a serious problem arose. A planning inspector decided that the Council did not have the five-year supply of housing development sites legally required of it so many current planning policies were suspended until a further 1500 plots were identified and approved. As a result there appears to have been a rush of speculative planning applications throughout the District which, even if they are turned down by the Council, may well be approved on appeal. This includes the West Road site in Gamlingay.
Our understanding is that, when the Plan is finally approved, the Lupin Field will be protected as a Local Green Space, while the Green End Estate Development is the only new major development that will be considered in the village. This is good news, which we welcome, but until the plan is approved we are vulnerable to speculative applications, such as that at West Road.